Why Bernie?

If US Senator Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, he could win in November for any number of reasons. The US electorate is almost evenly divided regardless of candidate, swing voters are unpredictable, electoral math is tricky, Donald Trump has plenty of weaknesses, and a lot can happen between now and then.

JACKSON, WYOMING – For the last 50 years, almost every US presidential election has brought a new swing of the national political pendulum. Richard Nixon’s shifty administration gave way, after Gerald Ford was in office long enough to pardon his former boss, to the choirboy Jimmy Carter. Four years later, in rode Ronald Reagan, and then, following George H.W. Bush’s one-term interregnum, came America’s first baby boomer president, Bill Clinton. An impeached (but brainy) philanderer, Clinton was succeed by Bush’s son, the moralizing and anti-intellectual George W. Bush, who then gave way to the Spock-like Barack Obama, before the pendulum’s widening swing extended all the way to the unprecedented fringe of Donald Trump.

So, is it any wonder that as the Democrats muddle through their nominating contest, their most extreme candidate is running away with the race? After the Nevada caucuses, US Senator Bernie Sanders has more than just wind at his back. He represents exactly the type of partisan reaction to Trump that should be expected, and he is the latest manifestation of the national political pendulum’s steepening arc. Sanders, a lifelong socialist who has never joined the Democratic Party, embodies the opposite of America’s 1980s-style, greed-is-good incumbent.

Why has the arc of the United States’ electoral swings become so wide?

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Alexander Friedman, a co-founder of Jackson Hole Economics, is a former CEO of GAM Investments, Chief Investment Officer of UBS, Chief Financial Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and White House Fellow.

"The country is almost perfectly divided regardless of candidate, swing voters are unpredictable, electoral math is tricky, Trump has plenty of weaknesses, and a lot can happen between now and November."

I might be wrong, and have been before, but I think Friedman is saying that today we don't really live in democracies. Electoral results are too often close to 50-50. Take Brexit, for example. The outcome in this case was approximately 52-48. I would argue that such a result is less an expression of "the will of the people" - to quote Theresa May and Boris Johnson - than an expression of collective indecision.

What is really fascinating is that presidential elections in America are decided by about 70 thousand voters. That’s .02 percent of the population. Many don’t bother voting and two parties decide on the two contestants for the presidency. It has become an illegitimate process obviously. But there is no way to reform it so it will collapse into chaos. It’s like watching a slow train wreck. Every candidate for the last 30 years has touted infrastructure spending but none have done it and American infrastructure rots. Airports have become a joke

Sorry to inform you but Bernie is not a populist but a socialist/communist, He has been that way for 40 years, so a little research is in order with his positions and past writings. As the election moves closer, this record will become more apparent to the American people as the spotlight becomes brighter for all to see. Populists want to dismantle government putting the power back in the hands of the people. Bernie wants to make the government stronger and more intrusive, empowering the administrative state to direct the people. Just his comments about Castro and Maduro push Florida to Trump who to this day fails to repudiate after the destruction of their countries. The US Constitution and personal freedom are not where this man wants to go with the core American population in full rejection mode. In November, I suspect Bernie or Mayor Pete will lose in a landslide because there are not enough disenchanted current and post college kids to buy off with free college and tuition forgiveness. Sign up for another $40T in debt is not going to sell. Bernie looks to be their sacrificial lamb on the altar of socialism so the party can become more moderate in the future.

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